


thoughts dried/didn't mind

by HearJessRoar



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drabble Collection, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Prompt Fill, just a place to keep em all in one spot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-25 02:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 7,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: previously filled prompts from my tumblr, itty bitty pieces of easy to digest ficlets, and bits and bobs of leftover ideasfeat. Willex, Juke, Flarrie, Boggie, and a whole lotta friendship
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Reggie Peters, Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Ray Molina & Reggie Peters
Comments: 36
Kudos: 83





	1. willex/willie introspective

**Author's Note:**

> i know nobody likes these massive fic piece collectives but i need a place to find them easily so this is mostly for my sake. hope you enjoy anyway!
> 
> leave me a comment if you like em pls!

Willie collects pieces of people.

He remembers his childhood best friend’s birthday - _March 7th_ \- long after they haven’t spoken in years. 

His mother’s favorite song echoes in his ears on the lonely nights after his death, her wavery, sweet voice keeping him company. 

His father’s cologne, kept in the bathroom cabinet for years after he left, the label bright and crisp as the day his mother bought it.

So when he meets Alex, he wonders offhandedly what he’s going to remember after Alex inevitably leaves him, too.

His smile, maybe.

Or that he plays with his necklace when he’s bored.

The way he only ever seems _free_ when he’s behind his kit, drumsticks flying.

Not to mention any of the things that Alex says offhandedly, about Before.

Willie collects all the little puzzle pieces that Alex drops, hoping that he’ll be allowed to stay long enough to see the whole picture at the end.

He has a sister.

His mother used to dance with him in their living room.

His father was a contractor.

His last name is Mercer.

He keeps them all, tucked to his chest. It’s not like Alex is anything like him; guarded with his life and death. He says things freely, often without thinking.

Willie is jealous of how he wears his heart on both sleeves. Alex would joke that he has to use both to make up for Luke having none.

And Willie hopes that when he loses Alex because he _will_ , he knows it, that the thing he keeps the longest is the way Alex’s eyes had lit up _bluegreengold_ as Willie laughed with him in the fading sunlight.


	2. juke + eloquent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _Juke and ‘eloquent’ for the prompts?_

Luke had never been a particularly good student when he’d been alive. His grasp of chemistry was shaky at best, algebra had made no sense (geometry had) and while he did his best in social studies and world history it was just.

Boring.

But he’d excelled in English. Words had always been a strong suit of his, the way that someone could manipulate the same twenty six letters around to hold someone’s soul gently, or to snap them in half.

Unfortunately, while his teacher had gone as far as to call him _eloquent_ on paper, Luke never quite got a handle on using those words out loud.

And now, lying on the cold cold floor of the studio, wishing for the sweet abyss of nothing to _just take him already,_ his fingers intertwined with Alex’s and Reggie’s, and listening to Reggie’s ragged, choking sobs by his ear, Luke cries out with his whole soul as he hears the door open.

Julie shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t witness this, and Luke _knows knows knows_ that losing them is going to hurt her so badly he wants to strangle Caleb with his bare hands for Julie’s sake but he can barely get the strength just to _stand._

Her tears hurt worse than the jolts that are steadily ripping them apart and Luke prays for the words he needs to tell her that it’s _okay_ , that she’ll be okay and god, how much his heart _aches_ to tell her he thinks he’s been falling in love with her but he can’t, he _can’t._

He refuses to let her last memory of him be of regret, of _what if?_ and as best as he can, Luke tells her so.


	3. boggie + sneakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _Ship of your choice and ‘sneakers’_

Bobby’s first kiss belongs to a dead boy.

He thinks about that sometimes, when it’s just him and his guitar and his loneliness.

He lies when people -always _people_ never _friends_ \- reminisce about their first kisses, tells them it was a girl in a closet at a party.

The only one in the closet here is him.

But he thinks about Reggie’s face that day, grinning wide as he hands over the brand new shoebox, ribbing Bobby about how he needs at least one decent pair of shoes if they’re going to look like a real band. He remembers opening that Converse box, those pristine black sneakers that Reggie must have been saving for for weeks on his crappy allowance.

He thinks about Reggie’s braces glinting in the sun as he wishes Bobby a happy sweet sixteenth and the surprise on his face when Bobby couldn’t take it anymore and dropped the box to press his lips to his, in Bobby’s backyard where anyone could have seen them.

But Reggie had kissed him back, and they’d pulled apart to his laughter, and said that if Bobby had been that grateful, he might be buying him Docs next, and Bobby had blushed and they’d never talked about it again but the memory lives in his head and his heart and his soul.

Reggie’s eyes haunt him, and for months after the funeral, he swears he can feel an echo of that kiss burning against his mouth.


	4. ray & reggie + wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt
> 
> _Reggie/anyone or just Reggie really, wings_

The fact that there’s a ghost in Ray’s bathroom should be cause for concern.

But since that ghost is a seventeen year old bassist who currently looks like he’s two seconds from crying, Ray thinks this is probably less _haunting_ and more _hiding._

Reggie’s got a broken eyeliner pencil in one hand and he’s staring so hard into the mirror Ray is a little concerned he’s going to phase right through it at any second.

“Reg? What’s up kid?”

Reggie gestures wordlessly with the eyeliner. Ray notes that it’s from a brand he hasn’t seen in years.

“Alright, first of all, I know that was probably in your stuff, but it needs to be thrown out,” he says, reaching out to pry the pencil from Reggie’s fingers. “I don’t know if you can still get an eye infection, but I’d rather not find out, yeah?”

Reggie nods, and doesn’t protest as Ray drops the eyeliner into the garbage can. 

“Second, I got to be pretty good at this when Rose got sick. Do you want help?”

“Yes, please.”

And Ray’s heart breaks at the way Reggie’s voice cracks on _please_. He gestures him over to sit on the closed lid of the toilet, and digs for where he knows there’s an unopened eyeliner pen in a drawer he hasn’t gotten around to clearing out yet.

He peels the plastic off of it, and uncaps the pen. Reggie shuts his eyes and Ray gets to work, marking out black wings on either side of Reggie’s eyelids.

“Rose always felt most like herself when she had her liner on,” he says, carefully starting one thin swoop. “She’d tell me it didn’t matter when there were bigger problems to focus on, but,” he connects the wing to the rest of the line, and begins work on the other. “I liked doing this for her, and then Julie, when she wanted to learn. There you go.” He caps the pen.

Reggie opens his eyes and scrambles over to the sink to inspect Ray’s work. He tips his head from side to side to check the angles. “Looks good,” he says.

And Ray laughs. “You don’t need to sound so surprised, mijo. I wore quite a bit of eyeliner myself in the 90s, it’s not hard to translate it onto someone else.”

But Reggie has frozen, staring at him through the mirror with wide eyes now impossibly bigger with the frame of black around them. “Mijo?” Reggie asks, his voice quiet.

Ray furrows his brow. “Sorry, do you not want to be called-I should have asked. But what’s that silly phrase Carlos is always saying-” Ray snaps his fingers. “It’s free sons.”

And something in Reggie’s expression _crumples_ like his soul has collapsed and Ray has about a half a second before he’s got a sobbing teenager crying on him and yeah, he thought maybe Reggie didn’t have such a good home life when he’d been alive, but if being called someone else’s son is enough to reduce him to tears then Ray has half a mind to go hunt down the Peters wherever they are and give them a piece of his mind.

Ray wraps him up in the biggest dad hug he can manage, and sighs dramatically as Reggie sniffles into his shoulder.

“Now we gotta redo your eyeliner.”

It gets a choking, snotty laugh out of Reggie, and Ray calls it a win.


	5. julie & alex & reggie & luke + clothes theft

It’s such a nice cool day when Julie rips through the garage like a tornado.

Alex watches as she flies up the stairs to the loft, taking the ladder two steps at a time and if he hadn’t already been dead, he’d have keeled over then and there from anxiety watching her do it.

She’s muttering to herself, and he recognizes the zip of his bag. In a heartbeat, he’s next to her, sprawled on a dusty beanbag. Julie doesn’t even flinch.

“Can I help you?”

Julie shoots him a look and continues pawing through his clothes. “Alex, can I borrow your pink hoodie?”

“I guess so. Why?”

She makes a triumphant little noise and pulls his hoodie out by the sleeve. She tugs it over her head and reaches behind her to free her compressed hair.

Alex has to admit she looks pretty adorable in it.

“Flynn invited me to her club meeting today, and I…just feel like I need some support, is all,” she says, trailing off awkwardly.

Julie fiddles with the cuffs as Alex stares at her. “Why.”

“Because if I’m gonna tell a room full of people that I’m bi, I want to do it while wearing the baby pink sweatshirt of a guy brave enough to be gay in 1995,” she says briskly, staring him down.

And okay, now he’s starting to understand why the guys think he’s the emotional one.

Julie panics. “Oh no, Alex, don’t cry, please-” she reaches out and wipes his tears frantically, pulls him into a tight hug.

“I know the world still isn’t perfect,” he chokes, his tears soaking her hair. “But I’m so glad it’s a little kinder to us now than it was back then.”

She rubs circles into the space between his shoulders. He thinks that’s about the highest she can reach and he’s reminded forcibly of his mother, before Everything. He sobs harder and Julie’s other arm tightens around his waist protectively.

“Do you want to come with me?” She asks, propping her chin on his shoulder.

Alex freezes. Swallows hard around the catch in his throat.

Julie rocks him a little, side to side like a child. “You’re already so brave, Alex. But do you want to go to a place where you don’t have to be? Where you can just exist?”

He nods and she pulls away, swiping at her own tears and giving him a smile.

After she descends the ladder and meets him on the ground level, Julie offers him her elbow. Alex loops his arm through hers immediately and she pats his hand.

“We’re wlw and mlm solidarity,” she declares cheerfully.

Just as brightly, he says. “I have no idea what that means.”

~

She doesn’t really mean to steal Reggie’s jacket.

But it’s colder than usual in the garage and he saw her starting to shiver and just.

Handed it to her.

Julie loves Reggie, she really does. He’s a total sweetheart, all three of the guys are. But Reggie is a sweetheart and complete space cadet who doesn’t know that he’s the most sweet when he isn’t trying so hard.

And Julie doesn’t mean to keep it.

She practically drowns in it.

But she wears it to school and Flynn’s eyebrows meet her hairline.

“You going for the bass player now?” She asks incredulously, her eyes teasing and an amused smirk playing around her mouth.

Julie scoffs and rolls her eyes, adjusting the collar so it lays flat. “Please. I’m just borrowing it. The 90s are back, you know.”

She does eventually give him his jacket back.

But only after the traces of whatever 25 year old cologne he’d used to use are gone from the lining.

It had smelled like _safe_ , and _warmth_ , and _friendship._

~

Luke isn’t jealous.

He _isn’t._

But he sees Julie hanging out in the garage in Alex’s hoodie or Reggie’s jacket or Alex’s ballcap or Reggie’s flannel and he has to wonder if his stuff just isn’t good enough to steal.

So he doesn’t give her a choice.

He isn’t pouting either, when he pops Alex’s hat off Julie’s head and pulls his own beanie over her hair in its place.

Definitely not pouting and definitely ignoring Alex grinning at him.

Julie is laughing, but she tugs his hat down to where she likes it. “What would I want with your greasy old hat?” She teases. And he should have thought this through better, because she looks so cute in his hat, the orange offset by her dark hair, Luke nearly swallows his tongue instead of answering her.

And Julie rolls her eyes at his stammering, but there’s a pleased pink blush blooming across her nose and her smile doesn’t seem to drop for hours.

Luke would know, since he can’t take his eyes off her. Not when she keeps adjusting his hat so that it sits right on her hair, like not only does she not _mind_ wearing it just to appease his nonsense, it’s like she _wants_ to be wearing it.

It sets off sparks in his chest.


	6. willex + pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _Pride + willex_

Alex stares, hand to his mouth.

Nothing has convinced him that this is the future more than this, not Julie’s weird little blocky cell phone, not the angular-soft way that cars look, not the fact that the internet works even when you use the phone at the same time.

This.

This is what does it for him.

“Alex, hey, you in there?” Willie waves a hand in front of his face, and then pauses, seeming to realize what he’s staring at. “Oh. Yeah, that. Pretty neat, huh?” he says, a wide grin on his face.

Alex nods, because the last place he ever thought about finding a display of Pride merchandise was…well, anywhere really, he’s never thought about it before, but he definitely didn’t expect Pride flags to be so commonplace that they’d be available at a junky mall kiosk.

They used to sell hermit crabs at this kiosk.

“I used to have to sneak into the queer bookstore downtown,” Alex murmurs, reaching out to run his fingers over the last stripe of the rainbow flag. The material is thin and cheap, but it means so much more than what it’s made of. “I carried my Pansy Division tape out in a brown paper bag.”

Willie slings his arm around Alex’s waist, and gives him a supportive squeeze. “Yeah. It’s not great still, but some things are better. It was a little weird to see things flip from being the thing nobody wants to talk about to like, Oreos having Pride ads.”

“Oreos, really?”

Willie nods. “America’s Gayest Cookie,” he says solemnly.


	7. boggie + clementine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _boggie + clementine!_

Bobby sighs, and runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

The lyrics don’t come to him the way they do for Reggie and Luke, and that drives him crazy. He leans back heavily onto the couch, and tosses the journal to the table, giving up for the day.

Beside him, Reggie’s boots tap along to the radio, up in the air by Bobby’s ear. He swats at Reggie’s legs in annoyance. “Can’t you sit normally?” he asks irritably.

Reggie, upside down on the sofa and preoccupied with peeling the clementine he swiped from Alex that morning, sticks his tongue out at him. “No.”

The summer of ‘95 is hot and sticky and stretches in front of them like an endless expanse of opportunity. They’ve got gigs, _real gigs_ lined up in the next few weeks, and all Bobby wants is to contribute just one song for the set. Just _one._

“You’re thinking too hard, Bobbers,” Reggie says, offering up a slice of his snack. Bobby takes it and crams it into his mouth, chewing angrily. “You’re making it way more difficult than it needs to be.”

Bobby snorts, and says with his mouth full, “Easy for you to say, _you_ can write anything.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Reggie says with a wink and Bobby nearly chokes, because that’s the wink and expression he’s used to being aimed at girls in their audience, not at him. Reggie rolls right side up and sits next to him correctly. “Let me help, show me what you’ve got.”

And Bobby ignores the way his face has started to burn as Reggie studies his way through the scribbled out lyrics he’s been poring over for an hour.

He doesn’t want to think about how much he likes the way Reggie’s arm is pressed up against his, doesn’t think about how that stupid cologne of his is making his brain foggy right now, doesn’t want to hope that Reggie is leaning into his space on purpose to point to some wording that he likes.

It’s nothing, he tells himself.

It was nothing, he tells himself again through his tears weeks later, watching the ambulance drive away with its lights off.

It never had a chance to be more than nothing.


	8. willex + proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _willex, proposal (come on i had to)_

They don’t usually stop the show for things, unless it’s like, Reggie’s birthday and they all planned on singing to him onstage, or that time Luke surprised Julie by rolling into _Oh Pretty Woman_ and chased her around the stage with his guitar to ask her to prom.

So while it’s not uncommon, it’s not something that Alex is usually out of the loop on. The band has been together almost ten years by now, and they all know he doesn’t really like surprises.

But Julie has always been someone who loves to interact with her audience, and the only part that confuses him in her little game now is the fact that she just said, “Alex, my lovely, I need you center stage, please.”

So he gets up from the kit, and makes his way down the platform, picking over wires and speakers, his face wrought in confusion but he knows whatever is going on has to be okay because Julie would never hurt him and he trusts her implicitly.

She tucks her arm around his waist as he joins her center stage, and the audience roars. He gives them an embarrassed wave and Julie grins up at him. “You all know Alex, our babe on the drums back there, right?”

They roar again and Alex ducks his head.

From the corner of his eye he can see Luke with a wide smile on his face, and he really wishes he knew what was going on.

There’s movement in the wings, and for a second, he’s almost positive he just saw Willie duck behind the scaffolding strut, but that can’t be right because Willie definitely isn’t in New York City right now, he’s back home in LA, Alex just talked to him this morning-

Julie gives him a supportive squeeze, microphone to her mouth. “Alex, could you do me a favor? There’s this sign out there, about six rows back, bright pink. I can’t read it. Can you read it for me?”

And he squints out, finds the sign, and as Julie pops the mic up to his mouth, he says in front of a hundred thousand people, “Hey, Hot Dog. I love ya. Marry me?”

And then he processes what he just read.

“Oh fuck-”

And it _was_ Willie in the wings and as he nods through his tears, hands to his face, he can hear the crowd losing it completely as Willie has his arms around his waist and Julie yells that he said yes and Reggie starts in on a ridiculous version of the wedding march on his bass and-

God he loves these people.


	9. juke + glitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _juke + glitter_

“Quit squirming!”

Luke fidgets again, peeking one eye open only to be met with Julie’s stony glare. He snaps it shut.

“You ask me to do your makeup, and then you wiggle around the whole time,” Julie grumbles, dabbing at the smudged eyeliner she just brushed onto his cheekbone by accident. “You’re gonna look more like Dee Snyder than Billie Joe Armstrong, you don’t sit still.”

“It tickles!” he protests, twisting his fingers together. Julie sighs.

“Alright. When in doubt, glitter it out.” she says, reaching for the tube of silver iridescent shimmer. She taps it onto her fingers, and drags them in tear-track marks down the left side of his face.

It looks good, but it needs something more.

Julie grins to herself, and leans over him, grabbing for her mermaid blue lipstick, the one that glimmers teal when the lights shift just right. She outlines her lips, and fills them in as Luke keeps his eyes closed.

“Hold still,” she says again, reaching out to place her fingers under his jaw. She aims, and presses a perfect glittery lip print to his other cheekbone.

He’s blushing, and he wrinkles his nose. “Did you just mark me?” he asks, laughter in his voice.

Julie laughs too, and touches up her new lipstick of the night. “Gotta let the audience know you’re mine,” she says.


	10. flarrie + paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _Oh um flarrie and “paint” for the new ask!_

Pieces of Flynn and Julie still remain in Carrie’s room.

She can’t bring herself to throw them away, to throw out the little reminders of an adolescence that seems so far away now. Hair ties and sweaters and borrowed cds she’ll never give back now.

A picture Julie drew for her when they were thirteen, pinned directly to the wall next to her mirror. 

It’s the original Dirty Candy logo, and Carrie sees it every day while she does her makeup.

But the thing that haunts her the most is the bottle of nail polish on her vanity.

Flynn had gone through a phase of making royal blue her signature color. It hadn’t lasted long, but if Carrie tries hard enough, she can almost smell the polish remover, Flynn carefully painting her nails on Carrie’s floor, can taste the peppermint candy she’d had under her tongue when she’d crawled down beside Flynn and caught her in a kiss while her nails were wet, _blue blue blue_ drying in the air as Flynn kept her fingers splayed on either side of Carrie’s face, never touching her but close enough for the chemical scent of her fresh polish to be burnt into Carrie’s brain for the next year.

She stares at that little glass bottle, and before she can think too hard, knocks it into the trash.


	11. boggie + effervescent

Kissing Reggie is like champagne bubbles bursting on Bobby’s tongue that time he’d snuck off with some at his cousin’s wedding, effervescent and fizzy and overwhelming with the forbiddenness of it.

The studio is dark and empty. Pooling all the spare change in their pockets had given them enough money for a couple of burgers from the joint down the road, and Bobby and Alex had locked eyes in silent agreement that Luke was going to get at least two of them to himself, because Luke has started to get that lean and hungry sunken-in look to him ever since running away.

And Reggie isn’t stupid, he knows exactly what they’d been up to when Bobby claimed he wasn’t hungry -and Bobby’s got a home still, with food in the fridge. He isn’t _lying_ \- and Alex insisted on Luke coming along to “help carry all of it” and Reggie had caught on and said he had to get home soon and now.

Well, now the studio is both dark and empty, and Reggie’s got his mouth crushed to Bobby’s in the shadows and the whole conversation leading up to this had just been Reggie telling him he was a good friend, and Bobby had shot back with an easy grin that Reggie was a better one and apparently that’d just set Reggie off because Bobby’s been pressed to the studio door with Reggie’s hands on his jaw.

The calluses on Reggie’s fingertips catch so lightly on Bobby’s skin, and he shivers, breathing through his nose. He’s got his hands gripped in Reggie’s jacket, crumpling the worn leather tightly in his fists like he’s a drowning man and it’s his only tether to shore.

And just as he’s really starting to kiss back, Reggie tears away. His chest heaves and Bobby’s heart cracks like glass as Reggie carefully untangles his fingers from his jacket. He doesn’t shove him back, and somehow the gentle way that Reggie folds Bobby’s fingers back into a fist to press a chapped-lip kiss to his knuckles is so much worse than if he’d gone ahead and hit him.

And Bobby doesn’t _understand_ , because _Reggie_ had kissed _him_ , so why does he feel like the one being rejected?

“I’m sorry,” Reggie murmurs, his thumbs stroking _once twice three_ times over Bobby’s hands, refusing to look at him. “Now isn’t the right time. That’s my bad, Bobbers.” He finally glances up with a shattered smile and broken eyes and Bobby wants to _cry_ and Reggie pulls away entirely to tug open the studio door and retreat into the inky blackness of the night and Bobby has this horrible sinking feeling in his chest that they’re never going to have a _right time_.


	12. julie & reggie + giggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> _break my heart then: julie + reggie + giggle_

Julie isn’t stupid.

She knows why Reggie is so attached to her dad.

And when she gets caught, her own nervous giggle ringing hollow in her ears, a bouquet of tulips in one hand and a pack of wet wipes in the other, she can’t look Reggie in the eye as she hands over the flowers.

“I just. Wanted to clean it up a little,” she murmurs, staring down at Reggie’s headstone. Reggie sighs, tucks the flowers under one arm, and wraps the other around her shoulders.

“The grounds people do what they can to keep it neat,” he says, his eyes distant as he stares at the grime of neglect that’s built up on his engraved name. “But I don’t think my parents have been here in years.”

And Julie’s heart breaks for him, because if anybody deserves to be missed, it’s Reggie, with his kind heart and his wide smile and if his parents can’t be bothered to wipe the dirt off his headstone, then how had they treated him when he’d been in front of them?

She hugs him tightly, pressed to his side, and tries to pour all the love she can into it.


	13. flarrie + glitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt
> 
> _flarrie + glitter_

She isn’t going to cry.

Not here, not on the grimy floor of the high school bathroom.

She _isn’t._

Carrie swipes her hand under her eye and comes away with a wash of pink glitter on her fingers.

Her stupid performance makeup is ruined, and she can’t bring herself to care.

Not when Flynn kept glaring at her like, like she personally spat in Julie’s face or something. Her whole routine, Flynn and her damn eyes were there, burning holes into Carrie’s heart.

She misses who they used to be, _how_ they used to be. Her heart aches at the thought, of summer days tasting like cherry slushies and karaoke in her living room and Flynn telling her she refuses to go to high school without having kissed _anyone_ so Carrie can I please-?

But she isn’t the mousey little tag along to the Julie and Flynn Show anymore, and Flynn isn’t the safety net she always was, and they can’t go back.


	14. gen + never have i ever

They play Never Have I Ever one night, when Flynn is staying over. Now that she can see them too, she’s obsessed with being their friend.

Sometimes she can touch them like Julie can, other times she falls right through. And quite frankly there’s nothing quite so funny as Reggie going intangible while Flynn is leaning on him and her suddenly disappearing through his jacket.

Julie was right; Flynn and Reggie do make a chaotic pair of friends. But she can’t bring herself to regret it when they both laugh so hard at the other.

Everyone is laughing now, hiccuping over Flynn’s dramatic retelling of her first kiss with Carrie when they were ten. Julie already knows the story, but it gets funnier with each time Flynn tells it.

When everyone has caught their breath (or whatever it is the guys do) it’s Flynn’s turn to ask, “Never have I ever…had A Thing for any of my bandmates.”

Julie almost laughs but then.

All three guys put a finger down.

Julie chokes and starts cackling as Reggie coughs awkwardly. Flynn crows about how she knew it.

“Sunset Curve not Sunset _Straight_ ,” Julie snarks, and Luke buries his face in his hands. Alex is laughing so hard he has tears streaming from his eyes.

Flynn can barely get out “Sunset Curve says what the hell is a straight bitch I’ll kill you-” before she’s gulping for air.

And then she kicks Julie in the knee. “Put your finger down, Miss Chemistry.”

Julie buries her face in her palms, mirroring Luke who has yet to come up for air. Reggie snorts and scrubs at his face.

“Three cheers for everyone in the band having a crush on Luke at one point,” he mutters, sounding resigned and amused.

Flynn hisses through her teeth. “Reg, don’t admit that, his ego is already so big-”

“Oh, you think that’s bad, try dating him,” Alex mumbles. 

Luke does not look like he ever wants to be perceived again on this planet.

But he snaps his head up to glare at Alex. “I was a fantastic boyfriend, what kind of crack are you _on_ -”

Julie is torn between mortification and curiosity.

Curiosity wins out and she peeks through her fingers. “Okay, so I’m not crazy, you really do always go for Alex’s hand when you’re freaking out-”

Reggie rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, they were _the worst_. Longest two weeks of my life. Dying ranks higher.”

Flynn laughs and says “Never have I ever kissed Luke-”

And they protest because it’s not her turn anymore, but Alex and Reggie both put fingers down. Julie ignores her and Luke hides his face again.


	15. julie & reggie + barbecue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt
> 
> _Julie and Reggie (platonic) and ‘Barbecue’_

Julie always feels a little bit bad when she eats in front of the guys. She knows that’s ridiculous, and they insist that they don’t care when she has a snack in the studio during their jam sessions.

But from the way that Reggie is eyeing up her bag of barbecue chips right now, she’s pretty sure they’ve been lying to make her feel better about it. Because Reggie is doing his best to pretend he doesn’t want a chip, and failing miserably.

Julie shakes the bag at him and Reggie jumps. When she keeps holding it out, he gives her a confused look.

“Jules, you know I can’t-”

“Yeah, and three days ago I couldn’t do _this_ -” she reaches out with her other hand and flicks him lightly in the nose. He scrunches it up in surprise.“-so things change. Try.”

She drops the bag into his hands and gets back to her notebook, pretending like she isn’t watching him from the corner of her eye as she scribbles out a chorus that wasn’t working the way she wanted.

She can hear him take a deep breath he doesn’t need anymore as he stares into the bag of barbecue chips like they’re some sacred object.

Reggie’s hands are shaking and Julie’s heart breaks for him.

But a second later there’s the unmistakable crunch of chips and Reggie almost chokes on them in his elation. “Jules-!”

She can’t help how wide her smile at him is. He looks near tears over a last second snack she’d bought yesterday for an overpriced four dollars, but as Reggie crams another handful into his mouth, Julie thinks she’d have paid fifty just for the look on his face at this moment.


	16. julie & alex + tactile comfort

Alex still can’t find Willie, and his pacing is starting to worry her. Luke and Reggie have already tapped out on trying to make him “get off the runway,” as they put it, Luke shooting her a salute as they vanished to who even knew where just to escape the steady footfalls of their anxious drummer.

Julie bites her thumbnail down to the quick.

She doesn’t know how to help him.

She certainly can’t find Willie for him; she doesn’t even know what he looks like, or even if she’d be able to see him.

She shifts and the couch creaks under her.

“Alex,” she says.

He doesn’t hear her, running his hand anxiously through his hair.

She tries again. “Alex!”

He jumps, stares at her. “ _What?_ ” He snaps, his fingers twitching where his arms are wrapped around his own waist.

Julie stands up, points to the couch. “Ten minute timeout.”

He doesn’t move and Julie claps at him. “Now!”

He scrambles over the coffee table to flop onto the sofa. “I’m on the couch, I’m sitting, don’t yell at me-”

Julie huffs through her nose, and sits back down next to him. “Come here, you dope. Your anxiety is giving me anxiety.” She pulls at him so he’s sprawled chest down over her legs, his crossed arms supporting his chin on the other side of her thigh.

She runs her fingers over his back, scratching lightly the way her mother used to do for her when she’d had a bad day at school. Alex sighs, relaxes bonelessly on her lap, and buries his face into his arms.

Julie cards her other hand through his hair, hoping for soothing.

“What am I, a cat?” Alex grumbles into his forearm, but he makes no move to stop her. Julie flicks his ear anyway.

“I know you’re scared for him, Alex.” She says, tracing circles on his shoulder blade. “And I wish we could help more.”

“I’m so worried, Jules. He risked so much for us,” He says, sounding half asleep already. Or at least as close as the boys can get to sleep these days. She tugs on his hair fondly.

“You’ll find him,” she says, and hopes that speaking it into existence is enough for now.


	17. julie & reggie + country

It’s interesting that for someone who insists that Alex is the emotional one, Reggie is the guy that Julie finds upset the most.

And she can’t blame him. Luke and Alex don’t spill their friend’s secrets to her, but she can see the way Reggie jumps when doors slam in the house. And he attached himself to her dad so fast, it isn’t hard to take a guess what the guy’s home life was like.

He isn’t the empty-headed space cadet he acts like he is.

It’s pretty clearly a defense mechanism, brought on by too many years of getting yelled at for being smart-mouthed.

Julie has seen it before, in Flynn, before her parents divorced. Sometimes it still comes out, when Flynn feels overwhelmed.

She thinks Flynn and Reggie should be friends. They’d have a lot of chaotic energy in common, but it would be good for them.

But for now, she’s the one here in the garage, and she can hear him in the loft plucking despondently on his unplugged bass. The strings make a twangy sound, cut off too short without the amp.

Julie sighs.

He’s working on another country song, and her heart twists to know that Luke will probably brush this one off, too.

Country is Reggie’s thing, like pop is Alex’s not-so-secret love.

And Luke doesn’t mean to do it, he’s just so focused on the music that he writes that anything different sounds foreign to him. He probably couldn’t write a country song if he tried.

But Reggie can, and Julie has heard them.

And they’re _good._

Her mother had made sure to expose her to all types of music growing up, and despite the fact that she was an LA native, Julie actually did like a lot of old country songs. They were about heartbreak, and revenge, and love, just like plenty of rock.

And anybody who didn’t like Dolly Parton was the devil, honestly.

She isn’t quite sure what to say to him, and she can hear the frustration in his humming from above her head. The writing isn’t going well, and it hurts twice over that he’s putting so much heart and soul into something he knows won’t get listened to.

Julie slips her phone out of her pocket and pulls up Spotify. She connects to the stereo and queues up the playlist she’s looking for.

Turning up the volume, she hits play.

_Why’d you come in here lookin’ like that?_

Dolly blasts through the garage and Julie hears Reggie jump in his seat in the loft. With a flash of light, he’s in front of her, sans bass, looking very baffled.

She holds out her hands to him, an offer to dance, and Reggie agrees readily, still looking deeply confused.

But he twirls her through some country swing, and Julie isn’t even the least bit surprised that he knows how to pretzel.

She sings along with Dolly, trying to make him smile. _In your cowboy boots and your painted-on jeans, all decked out like a cowgirl’s dream-_

He laughs and she melts.

She’s a little bit in love with all her boys, forgive her, Luke.

He pulls her in from a spin and Julie breaks their dance to wrap her arms tightly around his shoulders.

“I told you, Reggie,” she says, rocking him as best she can on her tiptoes. “I’ll learn how to fiddle. And I’ll make Luke listen. You know his head is too thick for any sense to get through.”

“Thanks Jules,” he says into her hair. Reggie pulls away first, and dips her, laughing again as Dolly fades away and Tanya Tucker wails _Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on? Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?_


	18. juke + time

They’ve learned to work the TV, and it’s the bane of her existence.

Reggie has discovered that there’s eight more seasons of the X Files to catch up on, while Alex has been steadily tearing his way through Boy Meets World. They all agree that the 21 Jump Street movie is okay, but the show was better, and they’ve been rewatching Quantum Leap for the first time since 1991.

Luke has a big crush on Lucy Lawless, and when he finds out that Xena was on for six seasons, Julie is pretty sure she won’t see him off the couch for weeks.

But when she walks into the living room to see him staring blankly at the ceiling, she thinks to herself that she didn’t think it would be like this.

“Are you okay?” She asks, setting down her soda cautiously.

Luke mumbles something that sounds a lot like “…twenty five years…” and Julie’s heart breaks.

“Ah.” She says, hoping her voice stays light despite the crushing feeling in her chest. “Are you finally having your existential crisis?”

He snorts but doesn’t turn to look at her.

She climbs over him to sit on the back of the sofa, since he’s taking up all the room on the cushions, and nudges his shoulder with her foot. “Do you want to be alone?”

Luke shakes his head, and brings his hand up to wrap his fingers around her ankle. “Stay, please.”

Julie nods, and lets him ground himself to her without comment.

“It’s just…wild. You know?” He says, his eyes glazed. “You got to grow up with all this technology evolving with you, but for me it’s like…Alex’s mom had a cell phone, but it looked like a toy compared to what you call a phone now. You could play Snake on it.”

Julie stays silent but reaches down to offer her hand. He releases her ankle and tangles his fingers with hers.

“And the fact you can tell everyone we’re holograms and it’s believable is just crazy. Holograms are Star Wars tech, Quantum Leap tech. No high schooler should ever have that much power.”

She lets him talk, and lets him play with her fingers, and hopes that even if she doesn’t know what to say, because what can you even say to someone who has effectively experienced time travel? That even if she doesn’t have the words, that just being here for him is enough.


	19. gen + homework

Julie remembers the days when the studio was quiet.

Right before her mom died, and then after, when the lights stayed off and dust started to gather and Julie couldn’t bring herself to set foot inside.

It’s hard to imagine it that way anymore.

She’s taken over the couch, sprawled on her stomach with her homework in front of her while Flynn sits cross legged on the floor next to her. Reggie is in the middle of trying to explain a calculus problem to her that Flynn understood five minutes ago, and that Julie can’t wrap her brain around for some reason.

Reggie. Weirdly good at math, who’d have guessed?

He’s perched on the back of the sofa with his own notebook, leant down to show her how to do the problem step by step, but all she can focus on is Luke’s petulant guitar behind her.

He’s such a baby when she doesn’t pay attention to him.

There’s a scuffle behind her and Luke squawks indignantly as he hits a sour note. Julie rolls her eyes. She’s pretty sure that Alex took off his ballcap and walloped Luke over the head with it.

“Knock it off, or I’m gonna cram Ol’ Blue up your nose.”

“You don’t get to address my guitar by her nickname when you’re threatening me, Alex. Have some respect-”

“Knock it off, or I’m gonna cram _Miss_ Blue up your nose.”

“Better, thank you.”

 _Boys_.

Flynn is giving her an unamused look, already three questions ahead. “I’m glad I can see them now. So that I can judge them properly.” she mutters, hopping to her feet to stretch her legs after being stuck sitting for so long. She disappears from Julie’s view and she realizes with horror that Flynn is approaching Luke.

She looks over her shoulder at them apprehensively.

Flynn holds out her hand expectantly and Luke looks up at her.

“Give it. And go to the loft, you’re in time out.”

Luke looks taken aback. “You can’t send me to _time out,_ I live here-”

“You don’t _live_ anywhere, sweetie. Go. You’re distracting Julie.”

And to Julie’s surprise, he hands Flynn his guitar and disappears to the loft in a flash of light, with only minimal grumbling. Flynn unplugs it from the amp and brings it back with her to the couch, setting it down very gently for someone who definitely meant business.

“You can come down when we finish calc,” Flynn promises.


	20. boggie + wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt
> 
> _boggie + wedding??_

The winter of ‘94 is rough for Sunset Curve, but mostly for Luke. Christmas comes and goes and 1995 dawns with Luke crashing on the couch in the studio for a few days that turns fast into a few weeks, and Bobby is worried about him.

He’s worried about all of them, really.

Alex looks more and more withdrawn every time he sees him, and if Reggie comes back from his parents’ with those dead eyes one more time, Bobby is about two seconds from breaking down the Peters’ door himself.

So when he has the opportunity to invite them to something fun (and free) he takes it.

One of his cousin’s best friends is getting married, the woman is practically family, and Bobby manages to snag an invitation through his mother.

And when his friends show up to the reception, Luke in a borrowed dress shirt of Alex’s and Reggie in his newly polished boots, his mama rolls her eyes fondly. Alex tugs nervously at the sleeves of his suit coat under her scrutiny before she faces her son.

“I said you could invite one friend, Robert. _One._ ” she scolds, giving him a light swat.

He gives her a smile. “They’re a set, they don’t come separately,” he says with an apologetic shrug. His mother tsks her tongue, but she reaches out and straightens Luke’s collar and Bobby knows he’s gotten away with it.

They camp out at a table in the back of the hall and proceed to try to draw the least amount of attention possible to themselves until the party is in full swing and nobody will notice some technical wedding crashers in the line for cake.

The band starts up and Bobby sees the first real smile he’s seen on Luke in weeks as Reggie pulls him out of his chair and out to the floor to teach him the dance to _Achy Breaky Heart._

He and Alex watch in amusement as Luke stumbles his way through the steps that Reggie swings through with ease.

They return several songs later, and while Reggie drops into the chair next to Bobby, Luke grabs for Alex’s arm and insists that if he’s making a fool out of himself in front of a crowd of strangers, then dammit, so is Alex.

In the low lights of the reception hall, with the band’s speakers vibrating through the floor and the way he can practically feel the love in the atmosphere with all these people who have come together to celebrate a union, it’s no wonder that his brain shorts out a little and he has to lean on Reggie to let his heart catch up to his brain before he falls out of his chair.

Reggie grins at him and Bobby’s heart thuds in his chest because he knows that look, and he knows that look isn’t usually aimed at him. That’s Reggie’s flirty expression, the one he gets right before he hands a pretty girl a tee shirt, or one of their demos, or on one memorable occasion, the necklace he’d been wearing.

“This was a great idea, Bobbers,” Reggie says, his mouth practically against Bobby’s ear to be heard over the music. “Nothing better than love, and free cake.”

Bobby shivers at the word love.

It’s nothing. It’s _nothing._


	21. willex + ethereal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> willex + ethereal

Alex remembers learning about angels as a child.

All feathered wings and ethereal golden light and choirs and harps and halos. He'd thought they were wonderful.

Then he'd gotten older, and the harps had turned to hellfire and his parents' quiet disapproval and the cold, betrayed, _abandoned_ feeling of being left by God in a broken, dark room after living his life and dying for living it.

But then he meets Willie and he doesn't want to be too corny, but Alex will swear he heard-well, not _harps_ but some kind of music in that moment, and yeah, he's maybe a little bit convinced that Willie could be an angel and if he squints a little as Willie flies through the museum on that skateboard of his, he swears he could almost see wings.

But the other shoe drops, and Alex has to face the reality that Willie is just as prone to mortal mistakes as he is. And as Willie glides away, back to him and Alex’s heart shattering on the sidewalk, the sun lights his hair like a halo, and he wonders if he could still see those wings if he just tried hard enough.


End file.
